Too busy winning: 10 Takeaways from Celtics/Mavericks

The Boston Celtics won again. Woohoo!

The 2024 NBA Finals are off to a pretty good start for the Celtics, if by pretty good you mean literally as good as they could possibly be going since they haven’t lost a game yet. Things aren’t going so great for the Dallas Mavericks, who sit in an absolutely disastrous state after getting blown out once and dropping an extremely winnable Game 2.

If I was a Mavericks fan, I’d be irate. But I am not a Mavericks fan, so it’s like Christmas if it was a non-religious holiday that marked the day when the Celtics took a 2-0 lead in the NBA Finals. It would be a tough rebrand, but might just revive the spirit of Christmas around an event we can all agree is positively glorious.

Full disclosure: I’m really tired. I’m still studying abroad in Germany and between staying up until 5 a.m. local time to watch the game and my 9 a.m. class about the German Economic Miracle between 1892-1896, my system is a bit shot. If I miss a typo, incorrectly state that the Mavericks are from Edmonton or accidentally call Payton Pritchard “the half-court-end-of-quarter Stephen Curry,” I ask you to please bear with me.

Photo by Brian Babineau/NBAE via Getty Images

1. Winning is all that matters

I don’t care if Jayson Tatum plays well. I don’t care if Kyrie Irving plays poorly. I don’t care about the Celtics’ three point percentage or the Mavericks’ assist rate or any wonky refereeing or which celebrities are sitting courtside or who won the rebounding battle or who committed more turnovers.

Those are questions for the first 96 hands of this poker game we call the NBA season. We can bluff, shove, fold early or chase in the river, but right now the Celtics are all in.

In the regular season, winning isn’t the only thing that matters. Of course we have tanking teams that are trying to lose, and really good teams like the Celtics need to develop a functional style of basketball that can carry them through the postseason. With a playoff berth a foregone conclusion, it’s as much about developing yourself as it is winning games.

Teams also want to condition their opponents throughout the season to play them a certain way. The Mavericks want teams to double-team Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving, and have jumped through some pretty crazy usage rate hoops to get them to do so. And it paid off, with Dallas torching their way to the Finals off of double-team kick outs and lobs to wide open shooters and rim runners.

The Celtics spent the regular season trying to develop the league’s foremost mathematical destruction machine. They hit threes at such a clip and volume that teams are forced to over commit, and so the Celtics can then attack closeouts or open things up in the post and downhill.

But now it’s the NBA Finals. Fi-nals. As in the “Final” series of the NBA season. Everyone is all in. There isn’t any more time to be worried about if Tatum scores enough points to be the team’s “best player” or to worry so much about the number of threes the Celtics hit.

When all the chips are at the center of the table, you either have a winning hand or you don’t.

This single poker metaphor is going to guide the rest of the takeaways, so stitch it on a pillow somewhere and buckle up.

2. 2-0 leads are a big deal

But first, a bit of a lighter beginning. The Celtics are up 2-0, and I want to make sure everyone is aware how good a spot the Celtics are in and how much trouble the Mavericks are in. Think of it as a public service announcement, and you can file this away for future use in any of your 2-0 leads-in-NBA-playoff-series related arguments.

Some people will say that “the series doesn’t start until someone wins on the road,” which is objectively an insane statement if you look at NBA history. Being up 2-0 is a gigantic advantage, even more so nowadays when it seems like home court is about as impactful as a pool noodle in a knife fight.

92.6 percent of teams that take a 2-0 lead in the playoffs go on to win the series. In the NBA Finals, teams are 31-5 historically with this lead, slightly worse than the overall average but still a healthy 86 percent advantage. This is because, you know, the Celtics have to win two more games and the Mavericks have to win four, with the latter having not yet proven they are even capable of winning one.

This may seem obvious, but I love all the ways you can frame a 2-0 lead to make it sound way better or worse than it actually is. One could argue the series is basically tied, since the Mavericks still haven’t lost at home and could easily make it 2-2 by the time the weekend rolls around. But it doesn’t sound so simple when you say the Mavericks must now win four out of the next five games, and even worse when you factor in how poorly everyone not named Luka Doncic has played so far.

No series is over until it’s over, but multi-game leads are liquid gold in a league increasingly built on three-point variance. When the Miami Heat almost blew a 3-0 lead to the Celtics last season, they snuck by because Boston went cold in Game 7 after shooting respectable or better in the previous three games.

They had earned the margin for error afforded by their series lead, and the Celtics ran out of real estate. The Celtics have now built themselves a two game wall against any and all environmental disasters, such as a Luka Doncic 60-bomb or a P.J. Washington-literally-can’t-miss game.

But my favorite part about 2-0 leads is how they change Game 3, which can be difficult to think about if the series is 1-1 after two games. Instead, Dallas is backed all the way into a corner and essentially faces a must-win home game after an abject disaster of a road trip. These games often go insanely hard, so every take some deep breaths for Wednesday.

3. Jrue Holiday is a warrior

Well, he’s a Celtic, but like a Celtic warri—never mind.

Three days before we did it, I wrote a column titled “the Celtics should absolutely trade for Jrue Holiday” (stops to pat myself on the back) but I apparently didn’t ask the money question:

How were the Celtics allowed to trade for Jrue Holiday?

This isn’t fair for the rest of the league. Holiday has dominated this series since the opening tip of Game 1, flying around defensively and somehow converting every layup known to man on his way to a team-leading 26 points. He also was the perpetrator of the first of two kill shots that buried the Mavericks last night.

Welcome to Holiday versus the Mavericks. This isn’t just elite defense versus struggling offense, it’s energy versus exhaustion and execution versus sloppiness. Holiday tips a pass back to Doncic who was already dragging his feet getting it up the court. With how slow he’s walking it up, Holiday knows he has a chance to force an eight-second violation or at the very least cause some sort of disaster for the Mavericks offense if he can win one interaction with Doncic. Here, Holiday is playing the highest level of basketball, and I’m going to prove it with a really complex metaphor.

In fighting games like Street Fighter or Super Smash Bros, most people just spam buttons until their friend inevitably dies from some combination of hadoken fireballs, shoryuken uppercuts or Kirby turning into a rock and falling on people’s heads.

But at the competitive level, spamming buttons doesn’t work. Players are such robots that as soon as they hit you once, you can die to a single combo without even being able to hit back. One second you’re minding your own business at center stage, and the next you’ve been lightning-wind-god-fist-up-tilt-double-neutral-aired and… you’re dead.

Hitting hard doesn’t matter so much as winning individual interactions, something called “winning neutral.” Here, Holiday is facing Doncic in their most neutral states, with one nonchalantly dribbling the ball up and the other rising to guard him. But Doncic isn’t taking this neutral interaction seriously, and Holiday realizes that if he can hit once, he can start a combo that will lead to a cascade of good things for the Celtics.

Holiday isn’t alone, either. He is often just the combo starter for his teammates to deliver as many uppercuts and haymakers as possible. But he can also land a right hook to the teeth with the best of them, like the three he delivered at the end of his combo.

4. Blocked by White! Or… by Brown!? Wait, or blocked by, uh, the rim?

I have homework for everyone. Before reading this section, you are all required to watch this clip three times in a row.

Who actually blocks this shot? Is it Derrick White? Jaylen Brown? Or could it be an inanimate object: the rim.

I’m leaning towards the rim. If you watch the various slow-motion angles, Washington completely fluffs his dunk angle and the ball pops out of his hand like it was a piece of paper and the rim was a hole puncher.

White definitely gets his hand on the ball before it hits the rim, but Washington had zero chance of putting that dunk down with his jump height. I’ve also analyzed the court angles, and I totally understand why it looked to ESPN’s Mike Breen like White had just executed the greatest block of all time, since all he could see was White soaring like an eagle and then the ball getting spiked off the backboard like it’s the back wall of a squash court.

Of the Celtics players, Brown probably has a better case for actually “blocking” the shot since he was the one who actually Gronk spiked the ball off the backboard, but he kinda just eviscerated a shot that had already been missed. If the NBA’s definition of a block is “who got their hand on the ball first before it didn’t go in,” then I guess it was, in fact, “BLOCKED BY WHITE!” as Breen emphatically cried.

In any case, the moment totally ruled in real time, and I’m strongly considering just doing that Men in Black memory eraser thing for all the replays I’ve seen of that block convincing me that the rim did the heavy lifting. I’d much rather just remember it as a game saving defensive play from White, our glorious knight in shining armor.

5. Everyone needs to chill out about Jayson Tatum

I have a rule for my columns that I established waaaay back in my student paper days (which was like a year and a half ago): never comment on commentary.

Moreover, I promised myself I would never comment on commentary that is commenting on commentary, since now we’re just creating a double negative like the word antidisestablishmentarianism. Why can’t they just say Establishmentarianism?

But I’m making an exception just this once. It’s probably going to backfire, and we’re never going to do it again. Spoken like a true crazy person. (inhales)

The discussions surrounding Jayson Tatum have flown so off the rails we’re not even sure where the railcar went. Did it somehow tumble all the way into the ocean? Did it blast off into space? Did local townspeople convert it to a chic steampunk-themed coffee shop?

I’m pretty plugged into online Celtics discourse, though I’ll admit I am at the mercy of what my various social media algorithms want to show me. If you happen to follow me on X, you’ll notice I pretty much never argue with people online, and it’s mostly because I know I’m just not seeing the full picture, and because I don’t love arguing with accounts titled CelticsFan74 whose photo is a picture of Kevin Garnett. If I have no proof that’s a real person, so I’m not going to engage.

But I can only comment on what I do see, and it seems like Tatum has been turned into either some sort of religious icon with an aura of infallibility or a complete fraud who should probably be excommunicated and sent to the far reaches of the Andromeda Galaxy.

But even worse, we’re in the midst of a radicalism arms race between those two groups. Tatum minds his own business on his team that is two games away from an NBA Championship, and yet he still occupies center stage. He’s either struggling mightily to score—which he is, if you ask me—or playing one of the great two-way playmaking-defensive-rebounding games ever.

Social media only exacerbates the problem. Algorithms and Search Engine Optimization techniques are rigged against moderate opinions like “he’s struggling but also doing some good stuff” in favor of flashy, bombastic ones. I’m all for flashy takes about basketball, but with Tatum, we’re just off-topic entirely.

At the end of Hoosiers, Gene Hackman says that he and his team are “way past big speeches,” and let me tell you: the Celtics are way past worrying about if Jayson Tatum is scoring enough in wins. Remember the poker metaphor from 1800 words ago? “You either have a winning hand or you don’t”? Yeah, this is what I was talking about.

To be clear, Tatum is absolutely struggling. He cannot create anything offensively off the dribble and isn’t getting the foul calls he probably thinks he deserves. Meanwhile, his three ball has been off since the playoffs began, and he’s overcooking layups like he did in the 2022 NBA Finals.

His passing has been exceptional, as has his decision-making most of the time. He’s simply struggling to put the ball in the basket, which is usually something the Celtics really need him to do to be effective. But if—by some miracle that somehow happened twice in a row in the NBA Finals—the Celtics can endure a bad Tatum scoring game and still win?

Then they are, and Tatum is, fine.

He could score zero points. Hell, he could score negative points by accidentally dunking on the wrong basket. If he makes plays that contribute to a winning effort, that is what matters. Playmaking? Sure. Rebounding? You bet. Give me every sick kick out and every athletic steal in transition if it leads to points

Because again, you either have a winning hand or you don’t. Maybe in this series, Tatum isn’t the Ace of Spades that some of us want him to be. But three Kings still beats the pocket Aces the Mavericks think they have.

6. Threes, threes, you have to shoot threes!

It’s not often that something is so painfully obvious to me as a viewer and yet the opposing team seems to just… not notice.

I don’t claim to be any sort of special basketball mind. I’m a writer and a maniacal Celtics fan who has no desire to work in coaching. Nor have I ever really played basketball at a high level, so teams always are smarter than me about strategy items. But occasionally, from the birds eye view of the TV, one can see something obviously wrong.

Last night, the Mavericks attempted four three point shots in the four quarter, including a desperation one-handed heave by Doncic when the game was already over. But to only attempt three actual three-pointers when trying to make a double-digit comeback… I just don’t know what the Mavericks are trying to pull.

It’s not very aesthetically pleasing, but it is simply impossible to beat the Celtics with fadeaways, midrange push shots and high-degree-of-difficulty layups. Maybe that’s what your best player does best, sure. Maybe you’re the Heat and all you got are Bam Adebayo hook shots, or maybe you’re the Indiana Pacers and your best option are Pascal Siakam five foot turnarounds.

But maybe—just maybe—those shots simply aren’t going to produce enough points in the long run to keep up with the Celtics’ offensive talent. In a game where Boston shot 25 percent from the three, Dallas managed to be even worse from long range at just over 23 percent.

Worse still was their lack of volume. How are they only attempting 26 threes and only four in the fourth quarter? The Celtics were shutting down their corners and lob game, sure, but Washington and Derrick Jones Jr. were also just plain scared to shoot. If the Mavericks want a snowballs chance in a Cambodian summer of winning this series, they need to get up more threes.

7. Hypewashing with Payton Pritchard

I’m coining a new term to celebrate the win: hypewashing.

Hypewashing (noun – to hypewash [verb]): when someone does something so hype that everyone forgets their prior failures.

Payton Pritchard has had a horrendous series. He has made one total shot—including an 0-7 performance in Game 1—and has been hunted on defense like a severely overfished species of bass. Thankfully for him, this was the one shot:

The Celtics actually run this set play quite a lot, and I really wonder if they have a cute name for it like “The Pritchard Express” or “Payton’s Prayer.” In any case, Pritchard is their resident chuck-up-a-half-court-buzzer-beater guy, and he’s weirdly really good at it.

And, to his credit, not one single person will remember how unplayable he has been for the rest of the series thus far. That shot was a massive momentum shift, and is the inaugural example of hypewashing in the Oliver Fox sports terminology lexicon. Congratulations to Pritchard on this momentous award.

8. Poetry interlude

As I mentioned at the top, I kind of had to pull an all-nighter to watch this game here in Europe, so I’m running on fumes this many takeaways in. In lieu of number eight, I’ve composed a haiku:

Celtics win again

Jrue Holiday is so good

Job’s not finished yet

I hope everyone enjoyed.

9. Narrative versus scheme

I am one of the foremost believers in narrative-based prediction. For example, of course Kyrie Irving is 0-12 in Boston since stepping on the logo, since everyone here is still mad at him. Of course the Celtics are 13-0 on Sunday this year seeing as they’re clearly God’s chosen team.

But I’m not sure the narratives are going to save the Mavericks here. Most in my circles predict one Doncic explosion of 45 or more and at least one “why can nobody miss?” game from Mavericks role players.

It feels like this kind of stuff constantly happens to the Celtics. But there is a difference between something “constantly happening” and actually having schematic answers for the problems Boston is presenting Dallas with. Check out this random layup in the second quarter.

atch how Holiday maneuvers around Mavericks like traffic cones, acknowledging their existence but ultimately basically running a closeout-euro-step drill in practice. This is pitiful perimeter and interior defense, which is what allowed the Celtics to have the lead at half despite going 3-15 from beyond the arc.

Holiday did this exact move at least thrice last night, and the Mavericks had absolutely no idea how to stop it. The same went for any time Brown cut back door or the continued onslaught of Porzingis post ups. Even if Doncic made a few shots in a row, the Mavericks could never sustain a run because they could never consistently get stops.

The Celtics’ shot profile last night is the dictionary definition of a loss: can’t make threes and Tatum is ice-cold. But the Mavericks had no answers for the second, third, fourth and fifth options the Celtics were throwing at them, and so I’m not even sure a Doncic 60 point game would win it for them.

10. Slam the door

The Celtics have the Mavericks cornered, but now it’s time to slam the door.

This has probably been my most consistent refrain throughout the season: close the freaking door. Close the shutters. Bolt it. Put a chair in front of it. Don’t let them back in. No vacancy. No loitering. Call the police. Call the national guard if you have to.

Game 3 is always a dangerous spot up 2-0, because while a win sucks all hope out of one’s opponent, a loss brings them right back to the table. 3-0 is, at least historically, a wrap, and 2-1 with a road Game 4 feels like anyone’s series. I didn’t write any columns demanding the Celtics sweep the Mavericks or anything like I did with the Pacers, but I certainly wouldn’t say no if they did.

In March, during the two’s regular season game in Boston, the Celtics executed one of my favorite door-slams all season. The fourth quarter was a carnival, with White and Porzinigs raining threes and Tatum and Brown gliding around the court as the Mavericks were forced to capitulate.

It was one of a few games from the regular season that I remember as particularly encouraging. It showed the greatness of the Celtics at their best, and what they were capable of if they could stay out of their own way.

So far, they’ve actually gotten in their own way quite a bit, and still won. But history won’t remember that. If they can find their flow and lock the door for good, that’s what we’ll remember, and that’s why this series is so important. The Celtics aren’t just playing for a championship. They’re playing for our future memories, and by extension, for immortality.

Too dramatic?

11 (bonus): Superstition update (COMMENT BELOW)

I wanted to use one of the takeaways to issue a general call for updates on how everyone’s superstitions are working for the playoffs and Finals so far. Have there been any new ones this year? Is your old sweater from 1986 still working its magic?

Personally, I’ve had to go way simpler than usual while I’m abroad, basically just making sure to wear my Tatum jersey for every game. I had something going about going to the gym a certain number of hours before the game started, but while that one is undefeated the Celtics have also won without it, so I’m not sure.

I love hearing about people’s strategies, seating arrangements, lucky songs, and whatever else you’d self define as a superstition. Sound off below!

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